Cited in Toward “Thorough, Accurate, and Reliable”: A History of
the Foreign Relations of the United States Series, Chapter 11, Footnote 21

Letter From William H. Webster (Director of Central Intelligence) to David L.
Boren (Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence)

June 23, 1990

Dear Mr. Chairman:

The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has recently introduced S. 2749, a bill
to provide supplemental authorization of appropriations for Fiscal Year 1991 for
the Department of State. The bill contains a number of provisions that would
govern the writing and publication of the “Foreign Relations of the United
States” historical series. We strongly object to the provisions as currently
drafted, and we request that your Committee assist us in getting the provisions
amended because of their impact on the Intelligence Community.

If enacted as drafted, the provisions would require that all departments and
agencies of the U.S. Government provide to the State Office of the Historian and
a “Historians Advisory Committee,” a “full and complete set of the documents and
other materials pertinent to the record of the United States foreign policy
decisions and actions.” The only grounds for withholding any of such documents
from publication would be the compromise of U.S. weapons systems, the disclosure
of technical information relating to military equipment or cryptological
systems, or the names of living persons who provided confidential information to
the· U.S. Government. The bill essentially declassifies everything that does not
fall into those categories.

The bill ignores Executive Order 12356 governing classification of national
security information, and in fact narrows greatly the types of information that
could be considered as damaging to the United States if disclosed. The bill also
ignores the Freedom of Information Act, and indeed is inconsistent with the
exemptions of that Act. The “Historians Advisory Committee” may also withhold
other documents from publication on certain additional grounds listed in the
bill, but those grounds are not related to the protection of intelligence
sources or methods. If enacted in its current form, the provision could in
effect declassify every Presidential Finding and National Intelligence Estimate
by mandating their publication in the historical series.

At a minimum, we believe that the bill should be amended so that the grounds for
withholding documents and information from publication include all of the
exemptions contained in the Freedom of Information Act, and the decision on what
documents may be provided or published should rest with the departments or
agencies providing the documents.

I am sending an identical letter to Vice Chairman Cohen. I seek your support in
amending the bill to meet our serious intelligence concerns.